Books For Asia - Digital Children's Library in Cambodia

Learn More: j.mp/letsreadasia
Many children in Asia do not have access to engaging, colorful storybooks that inspire a lifelong love of reading. Often, school textbooks are often the only reading material available as children’s books are too expensive for the average family, especially in rural areas. Realizing this great need, Books for Asia is launching Let’s Read!, a project that uses low-cost technology to enable underprivileged children to attain the most essential of childhood experiences - the magic of becoming lost in a story.
Let’s Read! will pilot a project in 5 schools and 2 mobile libraries in Cambodia serving low-income communities. Each site will be equipped with Android tablets on which a digital library app developed by our technology partner, Library for All, will provide access to picture books in Khmer (the local language) and English. After the pilot phase, we will scale the project in Cambodia and adapt Let’s Read! for roll out to other countries in Asia.
As children learn first and best in their mother tongue, we are curating a starter collection of 50 Khmer-language books comprised of some of the best children's books published in Cambodia. Few children's e-books exist so we are collaborating with Cambodian publishers to license and digitize their material. By participating in this project, the publishers will gain valuable experience working with e-books, receive digitized copies of their books, and have access to usage data. Since bilingual ability improves educational and employment opportunities, we are additionally supplying 50 English-language books.